my dream comes true

And finally, after so many months of waiting and of navigating the Internet in search of our island, 28 November arrived, the departure date for Veligandu. We arrived at Milan Malpensa with a considerable advance and after completing check-in we waited for the departure of our Eurofly Milan-Male flight with a stopover at Fiumicino. The journey, lasting about 9 hours, passed quietly, but the plane is really too cramped, especially for me and my husband who are very tall and we arrived a little shattered.

Unfortunately the weather was rainy but through the clouds we could make out the first atolls and this made us forget the stiffness of our poor lower limbs! We land at Male in the rain and a terrible humidity, we also have to stay a quarter of an hour waiting to disembark because they made us park in the spot usually reserved for the president and this was not very well looked upon!!! We wait to carry out the transfer (I'd say we moved 50-60 cm, at a guess.....!!!) and finally we touch Maldivian soil. The humid heat combined with the tiredness of the journey, the slowness of the staff inside the airport for the customs checks makes me almost fall asleep. But as soon as we go out we are hit by an ''anthill'' of people who divide the tourists according to the tour operators and direct them to the speedboats or the seaplane base.

We took the seaplane, Veligandu was reachable only in this way! Our wait was very short, after a few minutes they announced our flight (keep your ears well pricked the announcement is not entirely clear!) and we boarded the ''big mosquito''. Unfortunately the inclement weather did not reward us with the spectacle of the little islands below us, in fact we flew very high to stay above the clouds and we saw practically nothing. Only when we arrived over Veligandu and I caught sight of its shape with the overwater at the end did I understand that we were at our destina- tion! Needless to say that as soon as I saw it and for the time I had dreamed of this moment I fell in love with it instantly.... beautiful, surrounded by half-submerged shallows and with exceptional colours despite the gloomy day.

Our cameras started clicking away like mad! At the seaplane mooring Andrea, the KuoniGastaldi representative, was waiting for us, a really nice guy who welcomed us while I strolled on the jetty enchanted by the colours of the lagoon. He had us sit in the bar and after a cocktail and a refreshing little towel he briefly illustrated the various common rooms and the habits, as well as the timetables of the island. We were then accompanied to the bungalows...I noticed with extreme satisfaction that ours, no. 134, overlooked the west side as I had expressly requested from the agency at the time of booking.

Unfortunately our suitcases had remained at Male and were only delivered to us in the late afternoon (it can happen seeing that there were many of us on the seaplane and they reserve the right, for safety reasons, not to load too much) The interior of the bungalow is very simple but anyway nice and above all clean: it has a Maldivian-style bathroom, comfortable mattresses, a safe, a stereo with CDs, individually controlled air conditioning and fans. In front it has a small porch with a bowl of water used to clean your feet of sand before entering and on the beach there are two little wooden beds "owned" by the bungalow which cannot be moved to other areas. Our bungalow overlooked the most beautiful and sheltered lagoon, furthermore in the evening it had the sunset in front of it; on the east side the sea is rougher and the sun sets very early.

Its downside is that it is more ventilated while on the west side one does not enjoy this relief.

So our holiday began in the afternoon, the rain had stopped falling and we couldn't resist the call of that stupendous sea! Our first sighting of the baby blacktip shark was an event. My husband was literally fascinated by it, even though afterwards we got used to their pre- sence, there were really many, some bigger and darker, natu- rally they were harmless, but they constituted a particular spectacle! We went around the perimeter of the island to get to know it better and I was truly enchanted by the long tongue of sand! I tried to imagine it before El Niño, when this strip was much longer and wider and the corals of the reef were alive, with spectacular colours.

I must say that even so............it's worth the 9-hour journey!! The common areas, that is the bar, restaurant, TV room, reception, all have sand so it is useless to bring lots of shoes, you go around almost always barefoot and it is a very pleasant sensation (a bit less so when you leave and put closed footwear back on, as in my case, seeing that in Italy it was winter!) We were pleasantly amazed by the restaurant and by the quantity as well as the quality of the food they served us during the week!!! We never ate the same thing twice! And besides it was all so good and varied. In the morning there was a large choice of croissants and cakes, fresh fruit juices, waffles, filled or plain toast, then scrambled eggs, cold cuts and cheeses.

Tea or coffee is served at the table by your personal waiter; ours was Amir, always very kind and helpful, especially at inventing the weather forecast, when he promised rain the day was splendid, when he promised on the contrary sun and sun, in the afternoon it duly clouded over! Otherwise our conversations concerned football and sport in general...don't challenge them at volleyball because they are much better and more agile than us!!! Returning to the cuisine, the lunch buffet always included a vast choice of appetisers, vegetables, potatoes cooked in various ways, rice, pasta, meat and exquisite fish, sometimes cooked with spices (the container was usually divided into two parts, one mild -not very spicy- and one hot, for palates fond of stronger flavours) and then there was also the dessert buffet, with ice creams, mousses, cakes and fruit in an enormous variety.

In the evening instead the buffet was single-themed, there was the Maldivian evening, the international one, the Italian one etc. My husband and I also had the dinner based on lobster: personally I feel I can recommend it, it is not very expensive, they set the table outdoors on the jetty in front of the restaurant, ob- viously by candlelight, with the sound of the waves in the background. That evening the sky looked like a carpet of stars, so close that it seemed you could touch them.......In short, an unforgettable moment!

In the evening, once dinner is over, there is the possibility of taking romantic walks under the starry sky that gives you the shivers, observing the little sharks or the big crabs from the jetties, or you can drink something at the bar and have fun with the island's soft entertainment. Per- sonally I liked it very much; every evening there was something that kept us busy anyway for that hour or so just to have fun and then each one spent the evening as he saw fit.

Very beautiful was the diving video, then we had the legendary hermit crab race (I had courageously bet on Titanic but....I didn't win!!!For betting enthusiasts there were also Schumacher, Del Piero, Ferrari, Nemo....they pass among the audience to show you the contestants, all rather sleepy I'd say...and you choose your favourite), the film in English, the quiz evening, the typical dances, a little disco, all done very simply and without forcing anyone. During the day you laze in the sun (we didn't get much of it but when it comes out you really need to protect yourself ade- quately, on pain of burns.....I had brought a protection 30 but I managed to burn my scalp and I guarantee you it hurts terribly!!!!!For snorkelling it is better to wear a t-shirt) and one explores the coral reef which is not very far from the beach.

On the east side it is richer in fish, even large ones, while on the west side you have to swim a bit more to get to the reef seeing that the lagoon is wider. I am not a great swimmer but the spectacle you see in those few centi- metres of water is truly something unforgettable. The point where the coral reef plunges into the deep blue had a great charm for me, indescribable in words, you saw myriads of brightly coloured fish, the sun's rays il- luminating the blue of the ocean.....you would never want to leave the water and abandon this marvel of nature. The emotion of swimming practically in an aquarium, hearing the parrotfish as they scrape the coral in search of food (I didn't believe that the ''crunch, crunch'' I was hearing was really them...!!!) still accompanies me now and it seems truly a dream to have spent a fairytale week on this island.

As for the excursions, we did the trip to the fishermen's island, Rasdhoo, and the snorkelling safari. At Rashdoo objectively there is little to see, even if it is in- teresting to see how the Maldivians live and work: they took us to their school and afterwards we visited the dhoni ''factory''. Then free rein to shopping: there is a whole street of little shops where you can buy souvenirs at very good prices. Pareos, carvings in worked wood, t-shirts, tea, are the masters, even if my husband managed to buy a trekking-type backpack that he cared a lot about! The owners very kindly invite you to visit their shops, but they are never oppressive and insistent, on the contrary they willingly strike up a chat with you about this and that.

Personally I got on very well ''haggling'' with Amir's cousin, owner of the shop ''Gabiano shop'', just like that, Italian style! Needless to say that the dhoni on the way back was loaded twice as much as on the way out!!! The Maldivians are in any case extremely kind, polite and helpful, they always greet you with a smile on their lips, even if they meet you 20 times a day their smile really cheers up your day. On the other excursion, the snorkelling safari, we reached 3 points of the reef between Kuramathi, Maadivaru and Rashdoo.

This was truly an excursion for me not to be forgot- ten and I invite everyone to do it if you go to Veligandu; since it is repeated several times a week I would have wanted to go back a second time but..........alas since I had slipped on the dhoni (always bring flip-flops!!!)my ankle was crying for mercy! If you are not able swimmers rent for 5 $ a day the life jacket that keeps you afloat and allows you to access that marvel that is the reef...The boat stops half an hour at each of these points and everyone goes snorkelling together. The water here is much clearer than around the island and the fish bigger and more numerous. Personally we saw the turtles, a big moray eel that watched us a little menacingly (perhaps we would be too with 20 people in front of us who never take their eyes off us...!) and a couple of clownfish inside their sea anemone.

The corals were also more varied and more colourful and this gives good hope for the resumption of growth after El Niño.

And unfortunately after so much beauty the time also came to leave our little island. Early in the morning we had the wake-up call and our waiters were already ready to serve us breakfast, then at 06.15 our seaplane arrived and the moment it lifted off from the sea in front of Veligandu tears came to my eyes.....it was not a goodbye but...... only an arrivederci